I tried making the garlic sauce two ways. One with more margarine vs oil and the 2nd with more oil vs margarine. The taste is very different to papa johns as is as the color. Papa's is yellow, mine is white with very little yellow in it. Any ideas? Margarines also differ alot by taste. I went with imperial for this test. It may just be better to drop the 75 cents for the sauce cuz because that is a very important part of these cheese sticks.

Nate,

As best I can tell, the base for the PJ Garlic sauce is a commodity-type product to which garlic and "natural garlic flavor" are added. For example, if you compare the PJ Nutrition Facts for the PJ Garlic sauce as given at http://order.papajohns.com/nutrition/5/subMenu.html with a generic "Margarine, margarine-like vegetable oil spread, 60% fat, tub" as given at http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/7190/2, you will see that the Nutrition Facts are almost identical. The generic margarine product has a bit less sodium/salt but the differences are so small as not to be noticeable on the palate.

A couple of retail products that contain most of the above ingredients are the Land O Lakes stick margarine at http://www.landolakes.com/product/14000/margarine---sticks and a Parkay stick margarine product at described at http://www.walmart.com/ip/Parkay-Sticks-65-Vegetable-Oil-Spread-16-oz/10291481. No doubt there are others but if you double the Nutrition Facts numbers for these two products, you will find that the numbers are close to the PJ Nutrition Facts for the PJ Garlic sauce. The two products, however, contain buttermilk or whey, which are milk products. The PJ Garlic sauce does not contain those ingredients. Otherwise, but for the garlic ingredients, the ingredients in the Land O Lakes and Parkay products are quite close to the PJ Garlic sauce.

You might want to print out the ingredients list highlighted above to take to your local supermarket and see if there are any retail margarine products, either stick or tub, that are similar to the above ingredients list. I will try to do the same at my local supermarket.

In the meantime, maybe you can try to identify a source for the Grandioso product that Jon mentioned, or maybe he can can tell us where he gets it. I do not recall seeing that product anywhere but I will look to see if is sold at my local supermarket.

After my last post, I visited two local supermarkets where I checked out about 25 different stick and tub margarine products. One of those products was the Imperial margarine, in stick form, but since it included palm oil and palm kernel oil, I concluded that that product would not be a good candidate for a clone PJ Garlic sauce.

Of the additional margarine products, I did not find any that were as close to the base margarine content of the PJ Garlic sauce than the Parkay stick margarine product that I referenced earlier. I think that that product is closer to the base margarine content of the PJ Garlic sauce than the Land of Lake product. The Parkay product is a 65% spread whereas the Land O Lake product is an 80% spread.

When I did not find a tub product that met the Nutrition Facts I was looking for, as well as the closest set of ingredients, when I got back home I looked for a 60% stick margarine product at the SelfNutritionData website. I found this: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/7189/2. As you will note, the Nutrition Facts for a 60% stick spread are close to the Nutrition Facts for the margarine base for the PJ Garlic sauce but for the inclusion of trans fat, which is also present in the generic 60% tub spread referenced earlier.

So, I think the closest you are going to come to a margarine product to test for a PJ Garlic sauce clone by adding your own garlic and garlic flavor (such as garlic powder) is a 60% spread, in either tub or stick form.

You might also look at house brands. I found one house brand that looked good as a candidate but it was only a 52% spread. Additional soybean oil would have to be added to that product to boost it to 60%. I should add that all of the margarine products I looked at noted the percent numbers on the packaging. So, you don't have to do any calculations.

As I expected, I did not find any Grandioso products. Before leaving home, I did a search but found only the garlic sauce product that Norma found. That product seemed to be a garlic sauce product rather than a seasoning to add to margarine to make a garlic sauce.

Continuing my research on margarine products, another possible candidate for any tests you decide to conduct is the Fleischmann's Original stick margarine, as described, along with the related Nutrition Facts, at http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=725046&storeId=10052&langId=-1. I had come across the Fleischmann's margarine products before but I had noted that it used corn oil. The Fleischmann's product referenced above does not contain any corn oil. However, you will note that the Fleischmann's product contains whey. Whey is the liquid in milk that is a byproduct of cheese production. Many margarine products contain water as the liquid but some, like Fleischmann's, use whey instead of water. Other producers of margarine products sometimes use a combination of water and whey. The Parkay product referenced earlier at http://www.walmart.com/ip/Parkay-Sticks-65-Vegetable-Oil-Spread-16-oz/10291481 is one such product and contains both water and whey but more water than whey. As a result, as between the Fleischmann's product and the Parkay product, I would go with the Parkay product because it seems to be closer to the base margarine product used to make the PJ Garlic sauce. Also, the Parkay product has a fat content that is closer to the base margarine product used to make the PJ Garlic sauce. The Parkay product is a 65% product whereas the Fleischmann's product appears to be a 70% product.

To the above, I should add that neither of the two products discussed above contains lactic acid (a milk acid), which is an ingredient of the PJ Garlic sauce. However, the Parkay product contains phosphoric acid, which is an acidulant that provides a tangy or sour taste. The phosphoric acid is way down the list of ingredients so it should not provide an overly tangy or sour taste.

Thank you Peter for your hard work in researching these margarines. I will take your advice and play around with it some more.

Nate,

Reverse engineering something, even something as simple as a garlic sauce, forces you to learn. But the knowledge gained goes into your memory banks and is there to use at some future date if necessary. This project has forced me to learn about the various types and kinds of margarine products and how they are created and how they differ. I am a learning creature. Without learning, I might as well fold up my tent and go home.

Today I added Wal-Mart and Kroger to my list of local supermarkets with many brands of margarine products to look at. Between these two stores, there were about six new margarine products that I hadn't seen in the other two stores, including Wal-Mart and Kroger house brands. As I expected, none of the additional products I examined was a candidate to use to try to clone the PJ Garlic sauce.

I think we have pretty much exhausted the available options among the supermarket brands of margarine blends.

It appears the best option is to just buy the dipping sauces directly from papa johns.

Nate,

That may well be true but before giving up you might want to check out the Parkay Original Squeeze margarine product: http://www.hannaford.com/product/Parkay-Squeeze-Margarine/711225.uts. The base ingredients (excluding the garlic ingredients) are not exactly the same as used to make the PJ Garlic sauce but they are close and the Nutrition Facts are also very close. Adding about 1 gram of soybean oil (a bit less than a quarter-teaspoon) to a one-ounce serving of the Parkay Squeeze margarine should put the Total Fat number at the same value as one ounce of the PJ Garlic sauce. Also, like the PJ Garlic sauce, there is no Trans Fats in the Parkay Squeeze margarine. I would also add a small amount of salt (a pinch should do it) to increase the sodium content of the Parkay Squeeze margarine to get it closer to the sodium content of the PJ Garlic sauce.

I also found a source of Parkay mini-tubs that are a half-ounce, at http://www.foodservicedirect.com/product.cfm/p/184895/Conagra-Parkay-Whipped-Spread.htm. Note the similarity of the base ingredients of that product as compared with the PJ Garlic sauce. That product also includes calcium disodium edta (added to protect flavor), as does the PJ Garlic sauce. I suspect that that preservative is needed to preserve the margarine mini-tubs over long storage periods. A potential negative with the mini-tubs is the added cost of shipping the product. BTW, I do not believe that the photo of the Parkay product shown at the foodservicedirect website is the correct photo. That photo is for the Light Parkay margarine spread.

Both of the above products (the Parkay Squeeze and the mini-tub products) are produced by ConAgra.

After considering everything I have learned to date on this matter, I think I would try the Parkay Squeeze margarine with garlic, starting with dry garlic powder. For small quantities, you might also be able to add some fresh garlic. My recollection is that a bottle of the Parkay Squeeze margarine costs around $2-3 (I saw it on sale at $1.99). That that is for a 12-ounce container. That would be equivalent to 12 of the PJ Garlic sauce mini-tubs.